There is a deep historical context behind current events on the Lebanese-Syrian border. On the Syrian side, beginning with Hafez, the regime expropriated and expelled the Sunni citizens and landowners to create a mixed Alawite-Twelver Shiite buffer zone between Syrian Sunnis and the Lebanese Sunnis of Akkar and Tripoli. This was a conscious strategy of demographic engineering to ensure that the Sunnis of the Levant would be isolated in pockets away from each other, a policy first introduced under French occupation. Hezbollah benefited greatly as many of its people crossed into Syria as part of this initiative to seize land and territory, and set up the smuggling networks for drugs, weapons, and terrorists across the region. The fall of the regime is going to see 50 years of land expropriations and expulsions undone. This also means that a significant number of Lebanese Shiites who settled in Syria and occupied its lands for decades are likely to be expelled back to Lebanon. Current clashes on the border are because Hezbollah and its drug gang allies are attempting to resist this process. Because they have made enemies of everyone in the region, no one is going to sympathise or support them. On the Lebanese side, areas like the city of Tripoli has been isolated and ravaged by poverty and civil strife for decades because it has been cut off from its natural connection with the rest of Syria. Under Hafez’ occupation of Lebanon, he also settled many Alawites from Syria into Tripoli’s suburbs like Jabal Mohsen. The days of that isolation are coming to an end, and north Lebanon (Akkar and Tripoli) will be reconnected with their natural Syrian hinterland.